Free House, on Surface He Likes, Gets Back on the Winning Track

An interesting thing about Free House’s record is that he has seldom run at Hollywood Park, the track he has trained on the most.

“Wet, soft, cuppy, hard, it doesn’t make any difference to this horse,” said John Toffan, who bred and races Free House with Trudy McCaffery, his partner on and off the track. “He probably prefers a hard track the most.”

Based on the times at Hollywood Park on Sunday, hard is what Free House got. At 2-5, the reliable Triple Crown runner-up returned to the winner’s circle for the first time since the Santa Anita Derby with a 3 1/2-length victory in the $500,000 Swaps Stakes in a fast time of 1:45 4/5 for 1 1/8 miles.

“He ran just as hard in this race as he did in [the Triple Crown],” jockey Kent Desormeaux said. “That just shows you what a stellar threesome of 3-year-olds we’ve had.”

After the Santa Anita Derby in April, Free House ran third in the Kentucky Derby, missed by a head against Silver Charm in the Preakness and was third again in the Belmont Stakes. Toffan and McCaffery elected to keep him at Hollywood Park, where he had run only once before, rather than ship him to Monmouth Park in New Jersey for the $1-million Haskell Handicap on Aug. 3. Touch Gold, the Belmont winner, will run in the Haskell, which lost Silver Charm when the Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner was sidelined because of a blood infection last week.

After the Swaps, Toffan didn’t rule out the possibility of Free House coming back in only two weeks and running in the Haskell, but it’s more likely his next start will be in the $750,000 Travers at Saratoga on Aug. 23.

Deputy Commander finished second in the Swaps after leading until the top of the stretch, and 2 1/4 lengths behind him was Wild Rush, who also raced close to the pace early. Hello, a multiple stakes winner who ran third in the Santa Anita Derby, was a late-running fifth when he broke down in mid-stretch. Suffering a compound fracture of the cannon bone in his left foreleg, Hello was destroyed and the little colt’s jockey, Chris McCarron, sprained his left shoulder.

McCarron, who missed the rest of his mounts, was scheduled to ride horses that won two $400,000 stakes. David Flores replaced him as Marlin reeled in the Sunset Handicap and Desormeaux was aboard for Twice The Vice’s victory in the Vanity Handicap.

Trainer Ron McAnally, who trained Hello, was shocked and virtually speechless after the race. Deputy Commander came back in good order, but his trainer, Wally Dollase, criticized the track surface.

“It’s sad,” Dollase said. “Are they trying to break down horses? The last few days, the track’s been getting harder and harder and [Sunday] was the worst. Look at the times they’ve been running. They’re way too fast. They should shape this track up. People have to be smarter than this.”

Free House’s time was a stakes record for the Swaps, which has been run only three times at 1 1/8 miles. He missed the American record for the distance by four-fifths of a second and Gentlemen’s track record by three-fifths. In an allowance race just before the Swaps, Kelleric’s time of 1:20 4/5 was only two-fifths of a second slower than the track record.

A Hollywood Park spokesman, responding to Dollase’s remarks, said that there had not been an unusual number of breakdowns this season.

Before Free House, the only California-bred to win the Swaps was Best Pal in 1991. Free House, the shortest price in the stake since Sunday Silence ran second to Prized at 1-5 in 1989, earned $300,000 for his fifth victory in 13 starts, sending his purse total over the $1.4-million mark. Toffan, McCaffery and their trainer, Paco Gonzalez, also won the Swaps in 1992 with Bien Bien, a year when Natural Nine, the second choice in the race, broke down and was destroyed.

Gonzalez was relieved that his 1,120-pound gray colt--the second heaviest horse in his barn--rebounded from the Triple Crown grind. Besides Sunday Silence, the Swaps also contributed to the comeuppance of Seattle Slew, the Triple Crown champion who was undefeated before his shocking defeat to J.O. Tobin in 1977.

“A lot of horses don’t run that good after the Triple Crown,” Gonzalez said. “It’s good that he got his confidence back. It’s too bad for the industry about Silver Charm. I would have liked to have met him again, only I would have preferred a mile and an eighth. I think this horse can run against anybody going that distance.”

Behind ordinary fractions, Free House and Desormeaux sat in third place heading down the backside. Leaving the far turn, they made their winning move from the outside.

“I only hit him once,” Desormeaux said. “I spanked him at the eighth pole. It was just a love tap for honesty. This guy was ready. He’s the type that tries to eat the paint out of the bottom of the feed tub. Even the day after the Belmont [June 7], he was kicking at his stall. He is under great care, and he showed it. Paco had him ultimately conditioned to perfection. I was sitting where I wanted to be, and I was very confident.”

Because both his sire, Smokester, and Free House weren’t nominated for the Breeders’ Cup, the colt would have to be supplemented for $800,000 to run in the $4-million Classic at Hollywood Park on Nov. 8. The Breeders’ Cup recently changed two of its eligibility rules to entice ineligible horses, but Free House’s owners don’t sound like they’ll be spending the money.

“That’s a lot of money to run a horse,” Toffan said. “It’s not the Breeders’ Cup fault, it’s our fault. We screwed up. The farm manager and myself. In moving the horse from one farm to another, we just didn’t get nominated.”